About Teaching Mentors
As experienced Teaching Assistants (TAs), department-based Teaching Mentors fulfill diverse roles – supporting TAs within specific courses, helping TAs improve their teaching skills, providing feedback to departments about what TAs need to be effective in their duties, and acting as a resource on teaching in general. Teaching Mentors may also help develop and maintain archives for classes and training programs in their departments, to prevent the loss of important teaching tools and information about courses from one year to the next. The MinT program equips these Teaching Mentors with the skills, resources, and content knowledge they need.
MinT events are open to any graduate student or postdoctoral fellow who is looking for more professional development in these areas. Even without a formally acknowledged role within their department, they are welcome to be active participants in MinT.
Many departments, however, have a more formalized Teaching Mentor role, filled by experienced graduate students who have been selected by their department (usually by the TA Training Director or Coordinator). To Teaching Mentors with such a formal departmental role, we offer the opportunity to be designated a MinT Fellow.
How to Participate
If you or your department would like to establish a Teaching Mentor position, please contact the MinT Coordinator. We are happy to provide examples of how other departments have implemented these positions and discuss how this program may best work for you.
